Pew has just released its latest Global Attitudes Project report: Global Public Opinion in the Bush Years (2001-2008). You can read it here, but I can give you a taste.

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“The U.S. image abroad is suffering almost everywhere. Particularly in the most economically developed countries, people blame America for the financial crisis. Opposition to key elements of American foreign policy is widespread in Western Europe, and positive views of the U.S. have declined steeply among many of America’s longtime European allies. In Muslim nations, the wars in Afghanistan and particularly Iraq have driven negative ratings nearly off the charts. The United States earns positive ratings in several Asian and Latin American nations, but usually by declining margins. And while the most recent Pew Global Attitudes survey finds that favorable views of America edged up in 2008, only in sub-Saharan Africa does America score uniformly favorable marks.”

pic2 “Finally, citizens of predominantly Muslim nations express positive views of democracy, as do those of other developing countries. In the 2006 survey, majorities or pluralities in five Muslim countries said democracy was not appropriate just for the West but could work for them as well. Included were some of America’s toughest critics, such as Egypt, Jordan, and Pakistan.”

I have not been in the USA since 1999. I found everyone I met to be brilliantly open and friendly; even passers-by on the street talked to me as if I was not a stranger. In the decade since being there I had grown a disdain for all things American, saw their government as bloodyminded on colonising the world, and their spiritual leaders (you know, Oprah, Deepak, Phil and the like) as, well, capitalist reductionists, i.e. the most important problems are yours and can only be solved by the next great idea that comes along.

May I go so far as to propose that America is as much a victim of bad PR as Islam? Probably not. But I, the everyday average chardonnay socialist in suburban Oz, am led to feel a little proud of his anti-USAness in favour of a more global sensibility. And most of my American friends feel the same. I think it’s time for a change. Obama may be a catalyst for it, but only in that he will have some impact on the global PR machine that governs what we hear and see about both forces.